If your prefer to listen to this essay, the audio version is here
We planned ahead (and then planned some more).
It was early days starting this farm.
My youngest wasn’t even a year old, I’d just left my corporate job and was on a steep learning curve, grappling with how to structure and manage the farm’s workload.
I’d left a profession in which I’d been knowledgeable, thoughtful and productive. I was organized. My teams’ years were planned out, we benchmarked well against our goals. Contingencies were considered in advance.
I’d applied these same planning skills to the farm. We’d purchased our farm and all of the needed start-up equipment in advance. Just so we could manage the transition without debt.
We’d documented what we knew - our values, the type of lifestyle we wanted to create. We even documented what we didn’t know and put plans in place for that too.
We didn’t have deep farming knowledge yet, but we had some good ideas how to get there.
Not surprisingly, our plans were not enough.
First there was the soil.
Early on we recognized our farm’s soil needed improvement. We weren’t shocked by this. This part of New York State is known to have poor soil. And soil tests early on indicated we’d have some challenges.
But soil can be improved. We set about doing it. Adding organic matter, grazing our poultry flock on our fields, applying compost. It wasn’t ideal but it was working. Each year the soil fertility and structure improved
Nothing, however, prepared us for what we found in one of our fields. It was a decently large growing space. At about 1.25 acres, it accounted for over 25% of our anticipated growing area. Not being able to use this acre complicated our ability to expand and operationalize the farm.
The soil was so depleted that - on about 30+% of it - nothing grew. Not even weeds. Other sections had drainage issues so severe that - to this day - we can’t entirely explain why.
Our plan had accounted for soil issues, but nothing this extreme. We were at a loss.
But there was also my body too.
We started this farm in part because I’d been physically ill off and on for decades.
Migraines, an inability to digest much of anything, Parkinson-like tremors, skin issues, fainting, infections persisting for months, rapid and inexplicable tooth decay, extreme weakness leaving me bed-bound, joints that froze up and became unusable, episodic yet extreme concentration issues.
Sometimes the symptoms would be nearly-debilitating levels for months. Other times, I lived an almost normal life. The transience led me to wonder - was I imagining the whole thing?
I had consulted all the specialists. Highly qualified doctors with great levels of knowledge and certainty.
Yet when all the tests proved inconclusive, all but 2 of these experts turned their substantial certainty against me.
According to them, there was nothing wrong with my body. But there was EVERYTHING wrong with me and how I managed my life. My symptoms were not a result of an actual disease. They resulted from my own incompetence.
I did not eat a sufficiently healthy diet. Even though I already ate a diet comprised almost entirely of whole foods.
I did not manage my sleep well enough. Even though I routinely slept 8+ hours/night.
I did not proactively manage stress. Apparently my existing yoga, meditation and prayer practice was not enough to demonstrate I was already doing that too?
One doctor even told me - I was routinely fainting on my commute because I had 2 glasses of wine/week. And - because of these highly irresponsible 2 glasses of wine - she was not going waste her time running any tests at all.
It’s easy to blame oneself for most anything. So I’d likely have accepted their (dubious) explanations had 2 wonderful doctors not stepped outside their comfort zones and admitted the obvious:
Your symptoms are not imagined or caused by anything you’re doing.
Objectively, something clinically significant is happening TO you, irrespective of whether we can find a cause at this moment.
Experts consulted and no answers given, I was frustrated, yes. But mostly, I felt validated. What was happening in my body was both concerning and real.
At that point, I shifted my focus from “Can I get diagnosed?” to “Given my current limitation, how can I create the best life possible?”
In part, I knew this involved even more lifestyle change. I’d noticed that sitting at a desk for long hours increased symptom severity. Conversely, time spent moving and working in nature lessened the symptoms.
“Maybe,” I thought, “farming will help me heal.”
I was partly right. During my first 18 months full-time farming, my symptoms faded somewhat. I wasn’t healthy exactly, but I was (mostly) functioning.
Until I wasn’t. Until the symptoms came back harder than I’d ever experienced.
Our plan had accounted for physical issues - but nothing this extreme. We were at a loss.
The guidance that harmed
To a fault, my lifelong reaction when encountering hardship has been “just bear down.”
With both our soil problems and my health challenges more severe than anticipated, I did just that.
Having already walked the medical gauntlet, I wasn’t ready to start that process again. Instead I chose to focus on our barren acre and the crimp it put in our farm expansion.
I sought out experts - industry leaders with experience healing soil and building farm businesses. I listened to talks, read books, purchased courses.
Once again I found rock-solid certainty.
The soil experts all proclaiming their soil-building approaches the best (maybe even the only?) way to improve soil. Whereas to me it seemed all the approaches had their own respective merits and challenges.
The best-selling farming author insisting no one over 40 should start a farm Whereas I - already in my mid 40s - knew I relied heavily on the wisdom, steadiness and financial security I’d built earlier in life. My age felt like an asset, not a liability.
The farm start-up and marketing expert who insisted life’s outcomes are entirely controlled by careful management of our thoughts. And nothing but our thoughts.
While I recognized the pivotal role mindset plays in navigating life’s hardships, I also had great confidence that we all encounter things - entire outside the control of our thoughts - that happen TO us.
We had not “thought” our way into poor soil, anymore than I’d “thought” my way into poor health. Mindset management alone would not solve this.
Once again, partial explanations rooted in hard absolutes did not ring true. I needed something more discerning. I needed something wiser.
The guidance that helped.
Around this time, my mom and I were washing dishes together, I was expressing not only how inadequate I felt but also my growing discomfort with these “expert” messages.
Mom listened carefully, paused quietly for a moment, then said,
”When my parents were building their farm, I don’t think they consulted experts or deliberated much over their decisions.”
“I think they just assessed each day, surveyed the ground in front of them and took the next step” she said.
“I think,” she said. “They just covered the ground.”
Covering The Ground
This simple statement - just cover the ground - cut through the noise.
It did not require me to override my own discernment in blind trust of others’ certainty. It did not blame me for creating the hardship. It provided a simple path, rooted in clear observation and incremental change.
I had a way forward.
We started healing the soil
With renewed faith in my own judgement, I revisited what I’d learned from the soil experts.
2 scientific facts seemed universal across the research.
Uncovered soil = loss of soil life.
Loss of soil life = loss of plant health.
I laughed at the implication. The science said, “just cover the ground.”
So we did. First we rotated our poultry flock through the site. In doing so we added a lot of high nitrogen manure.
On the most barren portions of the field. we then dumped composted brooder chips and shavings from our birds’ winter housing.
Across the entire field we layered whatever organic material we had - woodchips, hay, grass clippings and even large cross sections of trees we’d culled.
A couple months in, we planted part of our veg garden in the field’s most promising areas. The plants yielded.
That fall we added a small peony bed in one of the previously barren areas. The plants grew slowly but remained healthy.
Our barren acre is now quite fertile. It’s not perfect and will require continued investment for years. But the soil now has life. It’s become a productive, sustainable part of our farm.
Healing my body
By that winter, my mystery ailment had progressed to the point that walking - or even standing - was sometimes difficult.
I’d already doubled down on all the diet and lifestyle things. I recognized it was once again time to seek diagnosis and treatment.
I thought of the 2 doctors who’d actually been concerned and affirming. I decided to look for a new primary care doctor who was part of their health care network.
I walked into my first visit with my new doctor, she listened to me for less than 5 minutes and immediately said, “I’m referring you to a rheumatologist. Right away.”
In my first visit with the Rheumatologist, she took thorough stock of my symptoms, smiled and said with confidence, “I think we can get to the bottom of this.”
She was right.
By the second visit, she had a diagnosis - Rheumatoid Arthritis, Sjogren’s Syndrome, Psoriatic Arthritis and Psoriasis.
My rheumatologist later explained that - when she sees cases like mine - she assumes the patient has likely been sick since early childhood. In retrospect, I recognize I experienced my first symptoms at about age 8.
I was 47 when I was diagnosed.
Within days of starting my treatment plan, I noticed improvements. My strength started returning, I gained increasing use of my joints, and best of all, my inability to concentrate (what I now know was severe brain fog) went away almost entirely.
Two and a half years into treatment - covering the ground 1 methodical step at a time - my autoimmune disease went into remission.
And then we lived happily ever after. With perfect soil and in perfect health
Yeah right.
I could end it here - on the upswing and leave out the parts that don’t fit the story arch.
Like the fact that, once my autoimmune diseases went into remission, my medical team discovered a previously overlooked neurological condition. And then another one.
Or how a small section of our barren acre still has drainage problems so severe right now we’re just going to use it to grow willows.
I could preach my mom’s wisdom of “just covering the ground” like hard, gospel truth.
I could say it’s the answer to life’s problems and that if you’re life’s not working out how you want, it’s probably your fault. Because you’re not covering the ground well enough.
I could project the same absolute certainty the farm and soil experts use to sell books and build their personal brands. The same certainty doctors use to build elite medical practices. The same certainty I found so profoundly damaging while navigating my own hardship.
Katherine May, in her beautiful new book "Enchantment,” says it best,
“Certainties harden us and eventually we come to defend them. As if the world can’t contain a multiplicity of views.
We are better off staying soft. It gives us room to grow and absorb. To make space for all the other glorious notions that will keep coming at us across a lifetime.”
In retrospect, I don’t see the experts I encountered - and the unhelpful guidance they gave - as intentionally harmful.
They were so entrenched in their certainty they couldn’t see the collateral damage they caused.
Nor do I think we non-expert, normal folks completely avoid this trap either. I think perhaps we also harden into our own closely held knowns. And in doing so, inflict harm on those around us.
I’ve come to wonder, is our response when we encounter paradigm-shifting realities a skill-set in its own right? A series of questions we can learn to live alongside?
On one hand, we can consider the specifics of a given situation, choose humility and question our own rock solid beliefs. We can choose vulnerability, grow curious and ask, “Do these facts - perhaps - require a paradigm shift?”
We can walk gently into the world of unknowing. Somewhere beyond the protections offered by our expertise. Somewhere dangerously close to our own pernicious fears.
OR, on the other hand,
We can simply avoid all that blisteringly uncomfortable stuff, blame the person asking us the hard questions and stay stuck in whatever little crevice we’ve built ourselves.
Nearly all the experts I consulted chose the latter.
But before I judge them, I must admit how often I too have made that very poor choice.
Perhaps “Just cover the ground” prevents me from hardening into my knowns because it reframes my life as a never ending series of questions reminding me to be curious.
Or perhaps it’s because, to cover the ground, my feet must first be on it. I must feel the earth. Study its every contour, I must be rooted in.
And if I have faith, stay there long enough, a course of action emerges. Not because I’ve driven myself to an arbitrary conclusion. But precisely because I have not.
I am moved gently, in reverent repudiation of my own fears. I am not overwhelmed with big ideas. Nor told what I am not. I am simply asked to do those things I already know - and often already want - to do anyway.
Last year we added over 1000 perennials to our cut flower fields. Moving in this body with my joints and bones carrying the irreversible scars from decades of missed diagnosis, I planted most of the plugs myself. It felt like redemption in motion.
This spring, my health allowing, I’ll add over 1000 more.
Here’s where I must now be humble. I must not come to see this outcome as the heroic result of my own gorgeous master plan. The natural outcome of my own immaculately curated mindset.
No. This has all revealed itself bit by small bit, each logical next step emerging, each new stride gently reassuring, “Yes. this is possible today.”
And with these twisted feet, planted squarely on this ground, I answer, “Indeed it is, friend. Indeed it is.”